


The 2nd Secret

by Attorney C (arh581958)



Series: #MarveyWeek [12]
Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Day1 - Atonement, Episode Related, Getting Together, M/M, Prepare the Tissues, Protective!Harvey, falling in-love, feels!Harvey, feels!Mike, marveyweek, so many feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 22:25:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7407505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arh581958/pseuds/Attorney%20C
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a quiet corner office, their breaths mingle because they're too close, inches apart. Neither of them know what's changed. It happens without them realizing it, and yet it threatens to pull them apart. </p><p>(Or: What if, other than the fraud, Mike and Harvey had fallen in-love?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The 2nd Secret

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ["Marvey Appreciation Week"](http://arh581958.tumblr.com/post/146993147395/the-2nd-secret), Day 1 - _Atonement_.
> 
> This story mostly follows canon, except maybe from season 4. You'll have to read carefully which episodes I'm referring to. It's like a behind the scenes thing of what I _hoped_ happened and how Mike and Harvey fell in-love. It is also part one of a three-part series that will be published _during_ #Marveyweek. Which ones though, I will be keeping a secret. You'll have to wait an see. *winks*
> 
> Unfortunately, since I did not write the #MarveyWeek stories in order, this story is not beta read. Sorry for the grammar mistakes. If anything stands out, feel free to tell me~

The elevator closed, and Mike finally learned what the can-opener entailed. He also couldn’t have known what else lay ahead of him. It happened just as Harvey returned the source of their shits-and-giggles for the past god-knows-how-long back into Donna’ desk.

Corridors were uncharacteristically dark on Harvey’s floor, or maybe not so strange given that it was nearly two o’clock in the morning, then _it_ happened. The lock engaged with a click. Harvey’s got that half-smile half-smirk thing on his face while he leaned over Mike. Their faces inches, centimeters, millimeters, until nothing kept them apart.

There weren’t any fireworks on the first touch of their lips.

No, just the taste of Gatorade, salty pretzels, and weed mingling between their cotton mouths.

It _should_ have been disgusting, but it wasn't.

Mike moaned into the kiss like a dying man, clinging to Harvey’s expensive tailored suit with all his might as his thighs hit the table of Donna’ cubicle desk. Her pens, and other random office supplies, clattered noisily like a gun shot through the eerily quiet space.

Harvey pulled away, breathing labored and looking at him with some kind of awed disbelief in his eyes. For an instant, Mike thought that this was where his career ended and that kissing his _fucking boss_ would end him—right here, right now. But Harvey merely grinned that stupid stoned grin again and nipped at his jawline, tugging him wordlessly into the office by the strings of his grey pullover.

They ended up on Harvey’s large—but not large enough for two grown men to cuddle—couch. Mike’s legs bended over the one of the arms while his head pushed against the other. Harvey hovered above him with knees straddling his sides as they kissed again. Their hands grasped, gripped, groped, at each other, desperate and uncoordinated but they somehow managed to build a rhythm.

There’s mumbling, and clicking, and muttered curses under their breaths before their belts give way. Screw foreplay and screw propriety. They fucked hard and fast into each other’s fist, too high to do more. Harvey came first, painting Mike’s hoodie with thick globs of white, and Mike followed soon after, adding to the mess on his stomach.

Harvey clambered off on shaky legs. He dropped to the couch beside Mike, sitting on the floor in his now-rumpled suit with his hair astray and out of its slicked-back cage of gel. Mike lay on the couch, staring the interplay of lights along the black ceiling, basking in the afterglow. The room smelled heavily of sex and sweat and spunk.

Silence covered them like a thin blanket of regret.

“Fuck.” Mike broke first, groaning with cotton mouth and stick fleck of cum still on his clothes and fingers. “Fuck,” he said again, louder this time, enough to garner Harvey’s attention. The older man acknowledged with a flippant shrug but doesn’t turn around. “I’m a liar and a fraud and I just fucked my boss.”

Harvey made a non-committal sound at the back of his throat.

“Is this the part where you say that ‘it was a mistake and this should never happen again’? Am I getting fired?” Mike asked, playing with the sticky white substance on his hands, unsure if the high he currently felt came from post-coital brain chemicals or the coffee cart weed. At this point, he really didn’t care as long as the high stayed.

Harvey raised his hand, his clean right hand, beside Mike’s face. “Three questions. First question, it this going to affect out working dynamic?”

“What are you talking about?” Mike turned his head in a last-ditch effort to see more of Harvey’s profile, but failed. He can’t see shit with the hand blocking his view. “Is that your way of saying that if I don’t make this weird, you won’t make this weird, and you _won’t_ fire me whether or not having sex with you?”

Harvey flipped him off. “Second question, will you be expecting any favors or favoritism just because we engaged in sexual relations?”

The question made Mike snort, or chuckle, or giggle, or possibly a combination of the three. “Are you seriously asking me this? I’m your fuck— _freaking_ associate Harvey—or puppy or prodigy or whatever the hell you want to call me. There’s isn’t going to be much more favoritism than that. Everyone in the _firm_ knows that I’m your guy. That’s nothing new.”

Harvey shoulders lost a tiny bit of their tension as he asked the final question. “Do you want it to happen again?” His voice sounded octaves lower, out of breath, and just like it had been when he was panting like a dog beside Mike’s ear.

Mike swallowed, and his dick made a valiant effort to get hard again but it was hard with the weed still messing up his system. “Yeah, sure, okay.”

“I’m not giving you any more special treatment. I’m not going to let you slack off because I’m fucking you. Hell, I’m going to work you even harder than I already do between the firm and the condo. Keep doing the work—what I make you do, when I make you do it. If it interferes with work, we stop doing it, no questions asked and go back to the way things were, got it?”

There’s a big fat lump in Mike’s throat that he swallows. “Yeah,” he answered, surprised at his own breathlessness. He caught Harvey by the back of the head, cum-stained hand purposefully messing up the hair gel when they press their noses together. “Are you going to fuck me now, Harvey?”

“Yes.” Harvey answered, just as breathless, pulling Mike above him. It could be the weed. It could be something else. They fucked for the first time on the floor of Harvey’s office—slow and steady. Of course, neither of them would have said anything about it back then.

***

It kept happening again—and again.

They settled down and form a routine. Against all their hidden fears, adding sex to their dynamic changed nothing but created something better ta the same time. They talked without talking, read each other’s silent cues, just _knew_ how to handle each other. They became the firm’s most formidable team, nearly unbeatable and even solving the seemingly unwinnable cases.

They burned like a flame, fiery hot and untamable.

Harvey and Mike had a tiny buddle of privacy in the alcove of the deserted library. No one came in at this time of night—at least not normally. Today, though, wasn’t a normal day with the Ava Hessington case hanging over their heads.

They became reckless, too distracted by each other to hear a third person’s heavy breathing mixing with their own.

Louis ran, squealing, all the way home.

***

Jessica believed herself to be a considerate woman. While vicious at court and to her enemies, she fiercely protected her firm and her family. The firm _was_ her family, and nothing happened within their walls that she didn’t know about.

Not often.

For this reason, imagine her surprise when Louis barged into her office before she finished her first cup of coffee to tell her Mike Ross was sleeping with Harvey to get a promotion. It was on top of him already being a _fraudulent_ lawyer. She might have forgiven them for the first lie, but she wasn’t about to forgive them for the second.

“Break it off,” she told them _—ordered them_ —as soon as they arrived.

Harvey and Mike stared with equal expressions of shock. She looked at them straight with that unflinching gaze, sharp as razors, telling them both that this was something that neither of them could win—together, alone, or otherwise—because she had made up her mind.

“Break what off?” He smiled bravely, stuffing both hands in his suit pockets while Mike shuffled behind him. It might have been a mere incident her adopted such a posture or an entirely purposeful one. Jessica could never really tell with him. His poker face was incredible.

“Daniel Hardman had the _decency_ to book Monica Eaton a room in a five-star hotel with money embezzled from our firm, and _you_ —” Her eyebrows shot to out to Harvey while she kept the rest of her posture neutral, but inside she seethed, “—you have the _audacity_ to do it _here_? And don’t go pretend that you aren’t fucking. _I know_ , so why don’t you both save us all some time?”

“We are.” Harvey confessed but something in his eyes appeared more predator than prey. “What do you think you know, Jessica?”

She glanced directly at Mike, who refused to be intimidated. “I know enough. Daniel should have been a lesson enough for you, Harvey. He’ll do exactly as she did, and he knows the loopholes to actually _win_ this time.”

“You think were sleeping together so that I can get _favors_?” Mike burst out. “Jessica, I know that I’m not like any of the other Harvard douches that you’ve got running around, but I got here _because of what I can do_ and not because of who I sleep with. I am better than them.”

He rebuffed Harvey’s efforts to calm him. “Look around you. There’s a dozen more cases _exactly like you’re saying_ but ours isn’t like that.” Visibly affected, he shared a look with Harvey before nodding stiffly. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to find out how the hell Stephen led Cameron to Moriga.” He left without another word.

Jessica turned her full attention to Harvey when Mike rounded the corner. “What were you thinking?”

“That we were two consenting adults who wanted to engage in sexual relations with the understanding that it will not affect out professional relationship in the office.” Harvey sat down with a shrug. “It’s not remotely the same as Daniel and Monica. I don’t have a dying wife. Mike and I aren’t dating. That’s it.”

Jessica still appeared unconvinced.

“We _fuck_. Plain and simple. It’s to get laid than trying to pick-up some waitress in a bar. Sometimes you gotta let loose when the tension climbs too high. We brainstorm between rounds.” He waved his eyebrows suggestively. “You always said that two heads are better than one. It’s a win-win for everyone.”

Jessica leaned into his personal space, up-close and personal. “You don’t expect to believe that _your thing_ hasn’t been affecting your performance at the firm.”

“I don’t expect you to believe anything. I _expect you_ to look at the damn results and see for yourself. Check the documents. We’ve closed more cases than any other partner-associate tandem in this whole goddamn firm, and that’s not counting the clients that Mike’s able to bring in on his own time. He’s our highest billing _associate_. Tell me I’m wrong.”

She stepped back, stunned, because _he wasn’t wrong_. “I’m not happy about this, Harvey.”

“Then, don’t be,” he said, looking her straight in the eye. “You’re not threatening Mike again. I’ve already told you once before that _if he goes, I go_. That’s the deal. Don’t tell me that you can’t see him as an asset to this firm. He’s not going to go full Monica Eton because I’m not Daniel and how’s he even supposed to claim a suit against a firm that _he lied to get into_? This is it or nothing for him too.” 

“Alright,” Jessica relented but not without condition, “but you two are going to end the little side-agreement that you have. It was never part of the arrangement for him to stay in the firm. One secret is hard enough to keep. Especially now, Harvey. There’s blood in the water, and sharks don’t know when to stay away.”

“Louis saw us.” Harvey realized.

Jessica nodded. “He won’t stop sniffing around your golden boy now that he _thinks_ he knows what Mike means to you. It’s better to stay away.”

Harvey clenched and unclenched his jaw. “Fine,” he agreed with a scowl, “but this conversation never happened. If he comes to you again, you tell him that we’ve got a _murder case_ to win rather than snooping into each other’s personal lives.”

“Agreed.”

***

Mike and Harvey don’t break it off precisely because there was nothing _to break_ off.

Louis got his name on the wall for another reason—the much bigger reason, the fraud.

Jessica had been right all along.

***

Harvey fell over the footstool with a clatter. He hit the floor hard and to the side, saving his head. Above him, Mike exhaled loudly, breathing hard, furious and burning. He stumbled back. His knees buckled underneath him, and Harvey could only watch as he dropped to the ground just as loud.

 “Mike, please,” Harvey panted and groaned. It was weak and barely above a whisper. He didn’t need it any louder to be heard. So many part of him hurt, and he wouldn’t admit just how many of those parts weren’t on the outside. “Let’s call Gibbs.”

“I can’t,” Mike whispered. He buried his face in his arms, curled up like a child. “I can’t, Harvey, I can’t.”

Silence rang out through the condo, filled with the unspoken things between them.

“Come here,” Harvey said from his supine position on the floor. Mike followed, crawling to the older man on all fours. then lying down until they lay side by side. Outside and down below, the rest of the world kept turning but they wanted this final moment together.

“What would you have been if you weren’t pretending to be a lawyer?” he asked on a whim, turning so that he can see Mike’s face in the low light.

Mike clear didn’t expect the question. He looked like a deer caught in headlights. “Me?” A finger came up to scratch idly at his cheek. Harvey nodded. “I don’t really know… I mean…” He let out an awkward laugh. “I guess I never really had time to think about it like that. I was one-bust away from a prison sentence if Donna didn’t let me through that conference room.”

Harvey made a non-committal hum. “So, you going to answer me?”

“No- _pe_.” Mike popped his lips on the _p_ -sound. He sighed heavily, unconsciously leaning against Harvey. “All my life, I’ve wanted nothing more than to be a lawyer, you know? I wanted to put guys behind bars and help save the little people. I didn’t want other people getting a dollar-sign placed the people they loved like Renaldi did to me and Grammy. But then, I beat him, and it was over… but I got selfish and stayed.”

“You weren’t the only one,” said Harvey. It sounded like a confession. “I didn’t want to you do either… _damnit,_ I should have just asked Jessica to waive the Harvard rule for you. You could have finished your law degree somewhere else and then I could have hired you again—without the lie.”

“Wait, what—?” Mike blinked, shocked and nearly speechless. “You can… you can do that?”

Harvey shook his head. “No, not really, one of the reasons the firm kept its prestige even after all the changes in partnership is because we have a reputation of only hiring Harvard graduates…” he stopped to look at Mike. Their warm breaths mingled between them. “I could have—I should have fought for you, fought harder.”

“This isn’t your fault, Harvey, not _just_ your fault. I chose this too.”

“But you’re the only one going away for it.”

Mike didn’t want this to be his last memory of them. “You know, this would be much more comfortable the big-ass bed instead of the floor.”

It made Harvey laugh, causing his whole body to rumble. “What kind of macho-thing is this? Spend your last night of freedom in raucous bouts of sex?” He snorted even if it was clear that tensions still hung between them. “Is this really where you want to spend your last night, Mike? With me?”

Mike rolled to his side, pressing his body flush against Harvey’s with one hand looping their fingers together. “Of course you, Harvey, always you.”  

They find their way to the bedroom. Like riding a bike, they never really forgot how well their bodies fit perfectly together—a clash of lips, teeth marking skin, fingers toughing everywhere. There might have been nothing to break before but something was always underneath it all.

Scottie and Harvey. Rachel and Mike. Neither of those two came close to _Mike and Harvey_. Both relationships failed, crashing and burning miserably, while Mike and Harvey helped one another through each of it. They were better together, and everyone saw it.

Mood lights illuminated the dim bedroom—at the back of the head board, the sides of the mirror, and near the windows. Harvey shed the last of Mike’s clothes before pushing the blonde gentle to the bed. Mike ended up stomach-down on the mattress with Harvey’s weight pining him from above.

He sighed into the thick high thread count sheets as Harvey began the never-ending foreplay—starting with soft kisses on his nape and a tongue licking the shell of his ear. Between the courthouse and the firm, they haven’t done it slow like this in a long time.

“I have you. I have you, Mike,” Harvey whispered, hot and wet, into Mike’s ear. He ground his naked front to Mike’s naked back, loving the feeling of skin against skin, Mike’s heat against his. “I’m going to carve myself into every in of you—” he kissed down the curve of Mike’s back, “—every fiber of your being—” a long lick over the curve of spine, “—every cell, until my name is the only thing you remember.”

“I have, ugh, ah-a, eidetic, uh, memory…” Moans swallowed Mike’s protests. He clutched the pale blue sheets. Fingers clawed at the mattress. Cheek pressed against the pillow. He saw Harvey’s sweaty shadowed figure hovering behind him, and smirked, licking his lips. “That’s not going to be easy.”

“Oh?” Harvey lifted his eyebrow. “Is that a challenge, _rookie_?”

Mike tentatively reached out for the hand grasping his hips. “Make it a promise.”

They made love that night.

Harvey spent an agonizingly long time opening Mike up—first, with his tongue, then with his fingers. Mike shuddered under the onslaught of tongue and fingers combined. The tongue felt like heaven and hell as it squirmed its way between Mike’s cheeks, up and down the crease, into his furl of muscle. Fingers massaged his inner walls in search of something.

“Ohhh!” Mike keened when pleasure shot up his spine.

Behind him, Harvey licked his lips and grinned. “Fuck, Mike.”

“Again,” Mike begged as Harvey kept fingering his prostate. He pushed back against the fingers wanting more—more pleasure, more memories, more Harvey. “Harvey, _please_ , again.” He wanted it—all of it—something to take with him when he went through the prisons gates. Bless the gods in heaven for his memory because he wanted to keep this with him forever. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_!”

He couldn’t stop it. His orgasm crashed against him in surprise when Harvey’s teeth sank onto his shoulder without breaking skin. He howled loud enough for all of New York City to hear him.

Harvey wasn’t finished. He flipped Mike onto his back, right over the wet spot, bringing Mike’s legs around his hips. Mike’s flaccid cock hung limply over his pale stomach. With a wicked smile, he plunged his fingers again into Mike’s loose hole.

“Look at me, Mike,” he ordered while he stretched the puffy pink rim, waiting long enough for Mike to follow before pressing against the small bundle of nerve again. Mike’s breath hitched. He seemingly had the same idea. “Remember this, Mike, remember me. You got that? I want you—” his voice broke then he buried his face onto Mike’s shoulder, _–to remember us._

If only tomorrow wouldn’t come, if only the clock would stop, if only they never started this whole charade in the first place, then maybe they wouldn’t be losing so much now. It must be their punishment for being so selfish together.

Fireworks erupted when they kissed. It sizzled, and burned, and exploded with so many things. Harvey and Mike poured everything into the kiss—apologies, promises, and declarations of love. Mike held onto Harvey’s shoulders as if fearing that the older man would leave, and Harvey held onto Mike like the man would disappear.

“Come on, come on, fill me up, Harvey.”

Neither of them spoke after Harvey pushed. They could only pant against each other’s mouths while they both adjusted to being joined the first time in years, and yet it all felt exactly the same—it felt like finally coming _home_ after a long time away. If it wasn’t clear then, it became clear now, what had been missing since they were torn apart.  

They realized it, probably at the same time, but it was too late.

It wouldn’t be fair to either of them to say it now.

Mike placed his hand on Harvey’s nape, fingers curling onto the messy falling hair, then pulling the older man away from him. Their eyes met. How could they not when they were mere inches apart? Blue and brown stared at each other for a short eternity. They had words, so many words, that they could say but they didn’t say. Not yet.

Maybe, they didn’t need it.

Later, much later, when they were wrapped around each other in a haphazard mess of limbs and bodily fluids, they realized that Harvey had forgotten to wear a condom. Mike wrinkled his face at the mess after he tried to stand. Silky white drops trickled down the back of his thighs. There was a growl behind him, then Harvey pulled him back to bed for another round.

***

But, of course, they happiness was merely temporary.

The next day, Harvey took Mike to prison. They held hands underneath Harvey’s folded suit jacket in the backseat of the car. No one else had to know. What they had was between the two of them.

“… I’d do it all again.”

“I guess I would too, ‘cause I never thought in a million years I’d meet someone dumb enough to go to prison for me.”

“I mean, Donna always said you were looking for another you.”

“I guess I found one.”

“I guess… it’s time to get busy living and get busy dying.”

There was humor there but neither of them really thought it was funny. Still, a commendable attempt to make light of the situation. Outside the confines of Harvey’s condo, they couldn’t really hug or kiss their goodbyes, especially with one of them going on the inside.

“Watch your back in there, Mike.”

“I will.”

Mike turned around just before he stepped over the threshold. “The quote was for you, Harvey,” he said quietly but still loud enough to be heard, eyes avoiding Harvey’s gaze. “I want you to live your life, move on, and forget about me—please, I can’t—I can’t let you bring yourself down for this. Okay? Get busy living.”

Then, he walked away. It was for the best.

It was his atonement.

***

Donna never saw Harvey grieve. Not even when his own father died. At least, not like this. She also never saw him as apologetic as he is now. A week has passed since Mike’s lonely send-off. Only Harvey had seen Mike go in. Whether for better or for worse was yet to be determines. Right now, though, it seemed like for the worse because Harvey didn’t look like Harvey.

“Harvey, what’s wrong?” She asked, foregoing the sassiness.

Harvey, as per usual, waved her off. “It’s nothing. Just… let me speak to whomever client I have left, Donna. Make the appointments.” He walked into his office without offering anything else.

Donna stood by his doorway for a good five minutes before moving. He looked like the shell of man that used to be Harvey. She could see it from a mile away, and she didn’t understand it. Even if he wore the same Tom Handford suits, he wasn’t _her_ Harvey. It’s like he was missing something.

That became the norm for the next few days, then week, then month, but Harvey kept meeting—and keeping—clients, scrounging whatever he could to keep the firm a float. The fallout took a toll on Harvey in more way than one, more than anyone else in the firm.

It wasn’t until she accidently caught him having a panic attack that she realized _just how much_. He was crouched over his knees on the couch, head handing low between his shoulders, hands visibly shaking as he gripped them in a single fist.

“Harvey—”

“—don’t.” He gritted his teeth. Yet, even then his voice sounded week. He avoided her eyes. “Don’t even start with me, Donna, not now just—just—” He barely had enough will to finish his sentence. She watched the rise and fall of his shoulders with every breath, slow but steady, like a silent mantra to calm himself.

Donna gracefully fell to her knees in front of him, taking his hands in his. “Harvey, well get through this just like we always do… together.”

A flash of so many things ran through his eyes. She couldn’t read them all in time. He pulled away his hands.

“I love you, Donna.” He told her, almost too quietly, a calm before the impending storm. “But, I don’t think I love you the way you want me to love you because I…”

Donna felt the tears before she realized she’d shed them. However, somehow, hearing those words gave her a sense of relief as well to the years of tension—the years of hoping—between them. An answer, a sure solid answer to the question she never had enough courage to ask.

“You love someone else.” She wiped away her tears while nodding her head. Harvey looked away again, and it was answer enough. “Who?”

Harvey’s eyes flickered to his record player. Only then did Donna realize the song playing in the background—rather the album, _The Black Keys’ Brothers Deluxe Edition._ Six years ago the very same album was playing in the Chilton hotel’s conference room when they conducted their junior associate interviews.

She couldn’t believe it.

“Mike? All this time?”

“Yeah,” came Harvey’s hushed reply, “I didn’t see it coming. I was blind-sided by it too.”

“I…” It took great courage on her part but Donna placed a hand on his knee and squeezed. “We’ll still get through this together. I understand now.”

“Thank you, Donna.”

“What are friends for?”  

***

Only half the seats of the conference room were occupied at the next Senior Partner’s meeting. So few partners chose to stay. Nobody could really blame them from wanting to pull out their investments and cash-in their retirement plans. At least, the non-complete remained airtight, and none of them could take any clients. The clients left on their own.

“At this rate,” said Louis, as the name partners sat around Harvey’s coffee table, “we’ll have to downsize the office space to lower our costs and save resources. Clients aren’t really lining up at our doors right now. I’ll… We can also remove the raspberry branbars from the pantry and switch out the uniball pens as a start.”

Harvey looked up from his glass of scotch.

A few years ago, Louis made it his personal mission to bring back those said items under Pearson Darby, and now he was stating otherwise. It only showed how much he’s grown over the few months, after everything had happened.

“Thank you, Louis.” Jessica nodded with her own glass of scotch in hand. Smooth, melancholy jazz played in the background, just the way she liked it. They weren’t here as a celebration. They haven’t had anything to celebrate in a while. They met in Harvey’s condo for the very same reason—to save on electricity bills.

Tonight, Harvey’s been particularly quiet. If she was honest, he’s been quiet for a long time.

“I’m sorry.”

It rang out like a shot echoing in the dark.

Louis froze mid-sentence, prepared to tell him off for not listening again but the words registered in his head. Harvey Specter _apologized_. Harvey never apologized, at least not to him.

Jessica and Louis stare at the other man. Harvey’s eyes were dark, partially hidden by the hair falling out of its gelled-place. His hands held tightly onto the glass tumbler that his knuckles turned white. Neither of them dare to speak. They wait him out but his lips were sealed tight.

“I think it’s fair to call it a night.” Jessica gave up with a sigh. “We can talk about this tomorrow in my office. It looks like all three of us need to sleep.” And by that, she specifically meant Harvey, who looked dead on his feet.

Louis didn’t catch on quickly. “But, Jessica, tomorrow we still need to talk to—”

“Louis…” She warned.

“Louis is right, Jessica, we need to talk now.” Harvey surprised both of them. “All _this_ is my goddamn fault. I’m sorry.”

 “Harvey—” Both Jessica and Louis tried to reason, but he shook his head.

“No, let me finish,” he sounded almost pleading, “I need to tell you. I need _to be honest_. If any of us, if we, the firm, and everyone that’s left, can get through this, I need you to know—from start to finish, what happened then, what happened after, and what is happening now.”

Very slowly, they both nodded their heads.

“I was a cocky piece of shit that thought I could get away with everything. Technically, I have. I’m still a Senior Partner in my own firm, with my license, practicing my law degree when I should have been the one sent to prison—or at least I could have joined him. This is on _me_. It’s my fault, and I’m sorry that my actions are bringing down everything that you both have worked so hard for as well.”

Shockingly, it’s Louis who countered him first. “We knew about it and didn’t reported. At one point, we all consented to having Mike in our ranks despite what we knew. I mean,” he threw his palms open and shrugged, “Mike’s secret is the only reason you two agreed to put my name on the wall. It’s not because you believe in me, right?”

“Louis!” Jessica snorted, actually fucking snorted, before she threw her head back and laughed. The buzz of the alcohol being too good to pass up. “No, you got your name there because you were finally _smart_ for a change and played the right cards. We’re all here because we chose to be here, Louis. You, me, and Harvey. We all went along with it, and not we’re all going to watch the Titanic go down together.”

Louis, most likely buzzed as well, couldn’t stop the tears streaming down his eyes. “Jessica, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Harvey couldn’t take it too. “Really? Now, that’s just pathetic, Louis.” He started laughing along with her, equally as pathetic when the damn over his feelings broke and his emotions flooded through him. “I’m pathetic,” he admitted quietly, more to himself, “I let the man I love go to prison for me, and I didn’t stop him.”

He buried his face in his hands. “It’s true—it might not have started out that way, it shouldn’t have happened but it’s true. I was—we were—never supposed to fall in love but it happened anyway. And before you ask me, I don’t know when it happened. I just know that I do, and now—now he’s asked me to move on when I—now more than ever—and now, I’ve lost him, I’ve lost Mike.”

Maybe, _this_ was his atonement.  

**Author's Note:**

> As always, if you liked or enjoyed this fic, you should know what to do. **Comment/Kudos/Bookmarks** are always appreciated by this author. :) 
> 
> If you have a prompt or an idea, you can [INSPIRE ME](http://arh581958.tumblr.com/submit) on tumblr. Or [TALK TO ME](http://arh581958.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
> [Like this story on tumblr.](http://arh581958.tumblr.com/post/146993147395/the-2nd-secret)


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